LNB Upgrade, Hows my signal?

dnme

Dearly beloved,

Spent the afternoon replacing an old single LNB with a new quad. I also ran two new cables down into house. When skewing the LNB, I was using my old sky box as a signal/quality meter and running up and down ladders twisting LNB 1 notch clockwise (facing dish) until it peaked.

So, I'm a little worried that my signal aint great, sorry to be unscientific but I enclose a pic of my TV with Sky box signal test. Is this signal ok? I have a feeling it was a bit better on the old LNB.

BTW: This is the usual, 60Cm dish (I think), pointing at Astra 28.2E

Many thanks

watty

Signal isn't important. Some LNBs have too much amplifier anyway. Only Quality matters.

dnme

Yeah I'm told that alright. So how's my signal quality ?

snaps

dnme wrote: »

Yeah I'm told that alright. So how's my signal quality ?

would have said thats fairly low, my sky box (That i use to keep a FTV card alive) is nearly full on both bars, only in bad weather does it drop back to what you are registering.

Tony

Looks fine to me. If your pictures are fine whan its raining then I would not worry.

Storm 10

Hi Tony can you tell me which movement of the dish is the one for quality

Tony

Hi Storm, I'm sorry I do not understand your question?

Storm 10

Sorry Tony what I mean is when you line up your dish to the satellite should both signal bars be of equal value, mine go just past the half way mark with the signal bar being the strongest, I would have hoped they would both go the full way to the end if you were spot on with the satellite.

watty

The signal tells you that you are connect and nothing is broken.
You peak it with dish up/down and dish left/right.

Then you ignore it and ONLY go by quality.

Looking at Quality ONLY, you adjust LNB skew and only fine tune dish up/down and dish left/right.

Check that Astra 2B/2A channels are similar level and quality to Eurobird, because Astra 2D channels are strongest and if you are slightly to one side or with larger dish "peaked" on 28.5 (Eurobird 1) or 28.2(Astra) the other will be weaker. Very slight left/right.

Signal Level on it's own can be misleading. On a very small dish for 16E (which is stupid) you could be increasing the signal but reducing quality as you moved from 16E to 19E as 19E is very strong and 16E is weak. Similarly if you were trying to get 26E which is very much weaker than 28E here.

Storm 10

Thanks for the reply watty, how would I know that I am connected to the correct satellite, I have the small sky mini dish.

dnme

Thank you all for the replies, much appreciated. I have a suspicion that the weight of the new quad LNB over the old single LNB may be causing sag on the LNB arm.

I have no meters and had to borrow a roof ladder yesterday to do the job so it may be a while before I can get back up there again. As long as I have a picture I will be happy enough but I am worried now about rain etc.

I have (ish) plans to get a motorised kit and put that up myself. If I go down that root, I'll put a pole on relatively protected gable and put bigger dish there and will also invest in a reasonable SH meter.

Tony

No problem. The bars don not necessarily have to be of equal value, the signal strength depends a lot on the quality of the cable . The quality reading can also be improved (assuming the dish is aligned correctly) by trurning the lnb in its holder, this is known as skew adjustment. I'd be worried if both bars were 100% as it sometimes indicates a faulty lnb which is overmodulating. 100% on both is theoreticailly impossible but they are a rough guide, you need a spectrum analyser costing around 3 grand to really measure :-)

Bottom line is do not worry unless you get picture breakup in heavy rain.

Storm 10 wrote: »

Sorry Tony what I mean is when you line up your dish to the satellite should both signal bars be of equal value, mine go just past the half way mark with the signal bar being the strongest, I would have hoped they would both go the full way to the end if you were spot on with the satellite.

watty

I actually have 25% to 40% signal and 70% to 98% quality. But it's a distribution system with long cables.

I agree with Tony. Any near 90% to 100% on Signal is usually too much and the tuner or LNB could overload. Only likely with very short cable on over amplified LNB or a too large dish.